The Nancy Pearl Doll

First of all, Nancy Pearl is a real person. Carol Simon showed us the Nancy Pearl shushing doll in class on July 9, 2007. Nancy Pearl looks much better than the doll! Flickr has a Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure group that has over 100 photos of the doll. Many of the photos are well thought out and clever. I finally found a photo with creative commons license so I can show it here. It also has the advantage of showing the two versions of the doll. It was posted by bibliona. The name of the photo is "Window Shopping?"

Archie McPhee (Wikipedia) sells the blue doll for $8.95. Both action figures are available from Accoutrements, but they only sell in large quantities. Amazon is selling the deluxe version for $11.95, where they also feature other librarian items such as t-shirts, socks and other literary action figures. Kids Surplus is out of stock for the doll, which they were selling for $4.99. SeeFred.com sells the original action figure for $8.35. Reportedly over 2,000 dolls have been sold. There is even a YouTube video called "Godzilla meets Nancy Pearl the Librarian," which is about an overdue book.

There is a 6-minute interview of Nancy Pearl on NPR radio, in which she tells how she happened to become the model for the doll. Seattle Times story "Toymaker finds librarian who's a real doll" tells the same story in print. Seattle's Cable Channel 21 has a regular program, Book Lust, featuring Nancy Pearl. You can watch past episodes on the Internet. Abe Books has an interview with Nancy Pearl about her books, Book Lust and More Book Lust.

Well, to my surprise, Nancy Pearl's books are published by Sasquatch Books! While I do believe I have heard of Sasquatch Books before (in conjunction with a regional book about northern California), Dr. Tom Surprenant's sample library is always Sasquatch Library. So now I make a different connection with Sasquatch.